


Circumspect

by filenotch



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Embarrassment, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 12:38:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4222023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filenotch/pseuds/filenotch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"It's elective. It's a minor procedure." McKay broke off and looked away, a blush rising on his cheeks.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>Sheppard raised an eyebrow. It looked like McKay, and sounded like McKay, except he wasn't complaining in his usual full medical detail, complete with rampant hypochondria, sprinkles, and a cherry. This was new. "I don't need to know the details," he said.</i>
</p><p>Written for a bad sex challenge, but all the bad sex happened before this story starts. Rodney has a problem that leads to bad sex. He's decided to fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circumspect

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the sga_flashfic Bad Sex Challenge in 2006.

"It's elective. It's a minor procedure." McKay broke off and looked away, a blush rising on his cheeks.

Sheppard raised an eyebrow. It looked like McKay, and sounded like McKay, except he wasn't complaining in his usual full medical detail, complete with rampant hypochondria, sprinkles, and a cherry. This was new. "I don't need to know the details," he said.

"It's, it's just, well," McKay stuttered.

Sheppard schooled his face. This had to be good. This had to be as good as learning McKay's real name. "No," he said, "there are privacy issues involved. It's between you and Beckett. All I need to know is whether it will stop you from field missions."

Pretending disinterest should have started the torrent of information, but all McKay said was, "It's going to keep me off the team for at least a week. Probably longer."

"Okay,"

"I'll be able to work on my laptop in my quarters. Well, not on my lap, exactly, but I should be able to work."

"Okay." Sheppard said, but he was curious, so he added, "Anything I can do to help? Make sure everything's working?"

Sheppard meant the labs, but a look of sheer panic crossed McKay's face, and the floodgates opened. "Not for at least six weeks, and not you, really not you, and besides I don't think I'll actually need any help figuring out if it's working, plus there's the issue of making sure nothing happens in the mean time, because they tell me it could be very painful, so there'll be amyl nitrite to reduce the risk of - " McKay cut himself off with a horrified expression.

"Beckett's going to give you poppers?" Beckett had poppers?

"Excuse me?"

"Amyl. Rush. Poppers." Sheppard had trouble understanding how the conversation had turned this way, and more trouble putting aside the memories brought up by the names. McKay still looked confused, so he explained, "Recreational names for amyl nitrate. It gets used in, uh, clubs."

"Nitrite," McKay corrected absently, and then said, "Clubs? What kind of clubs?"

"Like - " Sheppard paused a second too long and finished, "dance clubs. Yeah."

McKay didn't seem to notice the pause. "Oh great. One elective procedure and Beckett's going to give me drugs that will make me want to, what, gel my hair? Shake my booty?"

"I don't think anyone's shaken their booty since the Seventies," Sheppard said, but his joke fell flat.

"This is just great." McKay started pacing. In the confines of Sheppard's room, it involved a lot of turns, but Sheppard was used to it. He kept his peace and let McKay's brain do whatever it did when his feet were moving and his mouth shut down.

"So what's going on?" Sheppard asked when McKay finally slowed to a halt.

"I'm getting circumcised," McKay blurted out.

That was the last thing Sheppard expected. "Why?"

"Sex, uh, hurts." McKay didn't look up.

"Always? You can't even - " Sheppard made a vague back and forth motion near his groin.

"Oh, very mature." McKay rolled his eyes. "No, I can, y'know, myself, and receive, you, uh, know, um, oral, but I can't, well - "

"Drive the bus?" Sheppard asked. "Hide the salami?"

"Huh? What are you? Twelve? I should never have started this conversation." McKay recovered himself enough to take on an exaggeration of his usual arrogance, his chin in the air. "It's a condition called phimosis, one which I happen to share with several famous historical figures including Louis XIV. He couldn't either."

That could explain a lot, Sheppard thought, but then McKay added, "As I was recently reminded."

Holy shit, John thought. Who reminded him? "Carson told you that?"

"No," McKay said, and shut his mouth.

John didn't push him. McKay would read any careful expression, especially a careful non-expression, as ridicule. He needed to see sympathy of some sort, and Sheppard had that in genuine spades. Sex that hurt? And not in that good way? Ouch. Still, he was curious about one thing that didn't fit. "So why the poppers?"

"Carson said the amyl nitrite was to stop unwanted, er, you know."

"Erections?"

"Yes, thank you. My humiliation is now complete."

"Any time," Sheppard said, trying to make an apology out of the joke.

It didn't help. McKay couldn't look at him. "I'm going to leave. Now. Um. This was just, you know, FYI. To facilitate scheduling missions. Bye." He paused at the door. "You won't say anything?"

"I'll be circumspect."

"Very funny," McKay said, and stalked out.

Sheppard watched him leave wondering who McKay would want to have sex with so much that he'd have his dick cut. It sounded like he'd tried with whoever it was, and failed spectacularly. Who? Katie Brown? That German blond in the physics group? Who else? Rodney probably swung both ways. John was sure he'd once made a reference to alternating current that didn't have anything to do with electrical wiring. One of the Marines? Ronon?

Now that was not an image he wanted in his head. And besides, Ronon wouldn't have made the Louis XIV reference. That ruled out Teyla, too.

Zelenka? Sheppard would swear he was straight. Cadman?

Sheppard owed it to McKay to keep his imagination in check. He did. He absolutely did. And then he thought of McKay doing poppers in the lab whenever that pretty Japanese scientist walked by.

In the end, he fell backwards on his bed and laughed. He felt bad about it, but he couldn’t stop.


End file.
